When Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, race relations in the South, particularly in Alabama, were poor. The South was still segregated, forcing blacks and white to use different facilities in almost every aspect of society. The Civil Rights Movement began to pick up steam when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. Issues of race were receiving serious national attention, and the time was perfect for a novel such as To Kill a Mockingbird, which examines the injustice of racism and inequality in the American South. The novel is set in the 1930s in Alabama.
The novel is also about how a young girl grows up and learns her way in a specific...